Mosul: Don’t Look Away

She was rescued from Mosul this week, where ISIS is still fighting with ruthless ferocity. Our ambulance driver took her to one of our medical clinics in west Mosul, where we’re treating her.

We couldn’t do this without you. But if you haven’t jumped in to help her and her neighbors yet, then please… don’t look away.

We cannot get their stories above the relentless noise of our 24/7 news cycle anymore. We can’t compete with fray of American politics. These children are suffering in obscurity. They are starving.

But it is not hopeless. We are here. We are helping. And we are poised to do so much more.

God knows I’ve about run out of tears the last few months crying for them. We can, and we must, continue showing up for those who need us most. After all, isn’t that what our dreams and aspirations and work and worship were supposed to be about? Building, joining, and experiencing the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible? Because it’s right here in front of us in this moment. We just have to choose NOT to look away. We have to choose to press into something hard.

That is where the transformation is. THAT is the more beautiful world.

If we try to save our own lives, we will lose them. If we give our lives away, we cannot lose.

If you have not given yet, or if you haven’t given recently, or if you can spare something additional to help our friends—everything I’ve experienced here in Iraq and Syria over the last decade-plus tells me you couldn’t possibly regret it.

Who will raise these kids? Who will house them? Who will feed them?

These questions haunt me.

These kids are our responsibility now. Many have lost parents, and our friends in Iraq are looking to us for help.

No, we will not be adopting them out. The Iraqi people are massively capable of raising them. They are the heroes of this story. Every. Time. But they need our help.

This is one of those times where it becomes obvious: there are no “other people’s kids.” There’s only our kids. We’re all in this together. We belong to each other.